


laid down by the river’s edge (I woke up in a river bed)

by blackkat



Series: Jango/Fay prompts [3]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, F/M, Friendship, Humor, M/M, Rescue, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25492342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: “I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jon says doubtfully.“It’s a fine idea,” Fay counters, settling the borrowed cloak over her shoulders.
Relationships: Fay (Star Wars)/Jango Fett, Jon Antilles/CT-7567 | Rex
Series: Jango/Fay prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941700
Comments: 17
Kudos: 435





	laid down by the river’s edge (I woke up in a river bed)

**Author's Note:**

> Jango/Fay mermaids! Jango is a mer and Fay is a hidden socerer. Modern setting! The evil Sith have caught a mer and have him on display at an aquarium like an animal. Fay rescues him with the help of the DnD group, where Jon promptly falls in love with on of Jango's sons, Rex, who is to pretty for his own good

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jon says doubtfully.

“It’s a fine idea,” Fay counters, settling the borrowed cloak over her shoulders. It’s Jon's, and vast on her, but it has the correct feel for this sort of thing. Jon won't need it tonight, anyway; Knol stuffed him into an azure shirt with an amusing number of ruffles, and though he looks vaguely put out about it he wears it well.

“I agree with the vagabond, actually,” Knol says, and grins. She’s half-shifted, which is all the disguise she needs, but Fay can't tell what she’s shifted into beyond the fact that it has a lot of very sharp teeth. Her evening gown is about three shades brighter red than her fur, too, and her mane is pinned up with golden combs. On her arm, Nico looks resigned, but neat enough, and the big, drooping hood should hide his face well enough. Fay looks them over, then draws Jon's cloak around herself, summons just a trace of misdirection that will make it impossible for anyone to remember seeing her face for more than a second or two, and draws the hood up over her head.

“You can agree all you like, but that won't change the fact that Sidious’s private showing is happening in ten minutes,” Fay says, and holds out her arm. Jon slides over and takes it, and between the scars and his aura, all shadows and blades and deep, dark forests, he seems exactly like the dangerous bodyguard he’s playing tonight.

With a huff, Knol tips her head, but she lifts her skirt with one hand and starts up the steps out of the basement where they’ve set up a staging ground. “I know, but that doesn’t make it a _good_ plan,” she says.

Fay snorts softly. “It doesn’t need to be. All we have to do is make it past the door and the wards.”

“Yes, well, for when this invariably all goes wrong, Dooku is mine,” Nico says, unconcerned. He opens the door for Knol, who blows him a kiss, and then follows her with a longsuffering expression. “You're quite sure of this intelligence, Fay?”

“Of course,” Fay says, and she’d hardly risk an attack on one of Sidious’s properties like this without good reason. He’s the most powerful dark wizard in the city, and Fay is old, has been fighting his kind for centuries, but Sidious is dangerous. “He stole a whole pod of mers from the bay, and now he’s showing them off like _animals_.”

“The leader,” Jon says, quiet, and when Knol glances back at him and raises a brow, he grimaces. “It’s the leader and his sons Sidious took. As a power play.”

“Shit,” Knol mutters, and pokes Nico in the ribs. “Why didn’t _you_ hear about this? Aren’t magicians supposed to keep up with the rumors?”

“I cannot have my attention _everywhere_ , Ven’nari, and if a druid like yourself hasn’t heard that—”

“Don’t you dare, Diath, I was too busy bailing your cute little nephew out of—”

“Tae was doing just fine, and he had already saved Skywalker—”

Fay raises a hand to hide a chuckle, then tells Jon, “Thank you.”

Jon flashes her a bare shadow of a smile in return, almost startling with his face left bare for once. Even his hair has been pulled back in a half-knot, the strands wound with blue beads. “She just likes to complain,” he says.

“Yes,” Fay agrees, amused, and watches Knol and Nico make their way up the wide marble stairs into one of Sidious’s mansions. There's a Nightbrother mage at the top of the steps, but he has a charm of compulsion around him that Fay can see from a hundred feet away, and it’s more than enough to blunt his senses. He lets them pass without hesitation, and just frowns a little when Knol tosses him a wink.

Raising a brow, Fay twists a little bit of power around her fingertips, adds a delay. As she and Jon mount the last of the stairs, she smiles at the Nightbrother, then palms a bill and offers her hand. “Thank you,” she says politely, and when the Nightbrother reaches out, carefully curling his huge hand around her much smaller one, Fay slips him the bill and hits him with the spell at the same time. It should take effect in a few minutes, wiping away the control on him.

“Risky,” Jon murmurs as he leads her down the next flight of marble stairs, ostentatious and gaudy.

“As if you weren’t about to do the same,” Fay murmurs back, and when Jon huffs, she smiles. Her eyes are on the scattering of people below them, though; she recognizes most of them, criminals and the worst types of magical folk, and has to carefully contain the flicker of fury that rises as she looks past them.

All along the wall, in tanks of faintly glowing glass, are mers. The largest holds one single merman, scales silver and blue, body scarred, expression furious. There are others too, though, his sons, with a rainbow array of scales, all in too-small tanks, so narrow they can barely turn. Prison cells, with collars meant to force them into mer shape indefinitely, Fay knows, and her fingers tighten around Jon's arm.

Carefully, gently, Jon presses his hand over hers, and says lowly, “Jango's bleeding.”

Fay can see that, too. A harpoon wound, and there's no reason for Sidious to leave it untended except to make a point. Some of his sons are wounded, too; one in particular, a mer with blond hair and jewel-blue scales, looks like he’s barely hanging on, curled at the very bottom of his tank. It makes Fay angrier than she can remember being in a very long time, and she breathes out, focusing, easing back. There's no time for her to lose control; Jango and his sons need help.

“Start with the one with the blue tail,” she murmurs to Jon. “Can you see how the shackles connect?”

Jon scans the tanks for a moment, then inclines his head. “All the others have their bonds tied to Jango's collar,” he says quietly. “And Jango's is bound to Krennic.”

Fay's lips thin. An upstart sorcerer, too confident for his own level of ability. She’s not surprised Sidious would choose him to hold Jango's leash for the night.

“He’s mine,” she says, and lets go of Jon. “Nico and Knol will start thinning the crowd in a moment. Be ready.”

“Of course.” Jon falls back, letting her cross the room on her own. Fay appreciates the space, and takes even more of it for herself; people scatter out of her way without pausing to think about their reaction, avoid even the hem of her cloak as it flares, and Fay keeps her steps steady, her power a rippling tide around her that’s just starting to breach its banks. Sparks of it dance across her dress, shimmer over the white cloth and then scatter, and she tips her chin up, pulls her hood back, and glances towards the tanks.

Jango is watching her, eyes narrowed, expression wary. He has one hand pressed against the glass, fins curling, and Fay holds his gaze, then smiles. Presses her fingertips to her lips, then blows him a kiss, just teasing enough that anyone watching might take it for a taunt.

He doesn’t, though. His eyes widen, and he pulls back, then immediately jabs a finger at the blond mer curled at the bottom of the other tank. Insistent, aggressive, but Fay just shakes her head. Jon is close; she can see the way the shadows move as he approaches, and even if he’s too subtle for her to feel the building power around him, she can feel Nico's, sleekly silver as it crests.

With a swirl of long skirts, Fay comes to a stop right behind Krennic, and says, “Orson. The keys.”

Krennic turns, startled. Looks at her, and for a moment there’s only confusion on his face, incomprehension, and—

Fay smiles, reaches up. She undoes the clasp at the throat of her cloak, letting it fall, and raises her hands. “Orson,” she says again, more forcefully, and Krennic jerks, takes a robotic step forward as a glassy sheen fills his eyes. “Give me the keys. I won't ask again.”

She doesn’t need to. Krennic unhooks a single, tiny brass key from his belt, then offers it up, and Fay takes it. “Thank you,” she says. Flatly, still staring, Krennic nods, and then he crumples like a puppet with cut strings, collapsing in a heap at her feet.

Instantly, there's a deep, heavy sound like a gong, and a burst of silver light crashes through the crowd, flinging them back, cracking personal shields, throwing people aside. Knol laughs, and as a sorcerer tries to jump Nico from behind, she charges, leaps. Kicks him away, then lands, shaking off her heels and baring her teeth at a wizard just staggering upright.

On the other side of the room, there's a flash of shadow, a piece of darkness moving. Jon steps right through the glass of the blond mer’s tank, grabs him, turns. There's a flicker, and then they're gone, water rushing in to fill the empty space as Jon reappears on the floor, arms wrapped tight around Jango's son.

All of Fay's attention is on Jango, though, and she twists the key through her fingers as she approaches. Lifts it, studying the fine make of it, and wants nothing more than to crush it to dust between her fingertips.

“Hold still,” she says, pitched to carry through the glass, as she comes to a halt.

Jango eyes her, mouth tight, and then nods. Fay smiles at him, small and a little crooked, and reaches out. Concentrates, then lays her hand against the glass—

It shatters, bursts, and the shards rain down. In a wash, the water surges out, and Fay catches Jango as the flood pours past her, hauls him up and out of the way and then lowers him to the stone. His chest is already hitching, not able to get enough air, and she reaches out without pause, fits the key into the padlock on his collar, and turns it.

The collar clicks open, falls away, and with a vicious curse Jango rips it off his neck and throws it to the side. Grabs Fay, dragging her down just as a bolt of magic passes where her head just was, and topples her to the floor, rolling over her to cover her with his body.

“Fucking _took_ you long enough,” he snarls, and Fay raises a brow at him, but doesn’t move as he fists a hand in her hair.

“You're welcome,” she says calmly, and Jango mutters a curse and leans down, kissing her hard.

“This is a terrible plan,” Jango tells her, pulling away, and the arm around her waist hauls her up. Fay gets her feet under herself and rises, feels the ripple of a change start to take him, and pulls his arm over her shoulders as he groans and staggers, legs unsteady after so long as a mer.

“It worked,” Fay says, unconcerned, and stops a bolt of magic a handful of inches from them. it shivers, then reverses course, slamming into the sorceress who threw it, and she supports Jango across the room as he heads for his son. The blond mer is clutching Jon, wide-eyed and confused as Jon soothes him, but his attention is fully on Jon, hands curled tight in his shirt, and he looks stunned.

“Rex,” Jango says, all relief, and drops to his knees beside him. Fay follows, pressing a hand to Rex's skin and letting healing energy bleed into him.

“Dad,” Rex says, finally managing to tear his eyes away from Jon. He grips Jango's hand, then offers Fay a smile. “You got him.”

“Of course,” Fay says, and smiles back. “No one is allowed to kidnap the king of the city’s mers but me.”

Jango scoffs, even as his hand splays over her back, possessive. “ _Your_ kidnappings don’t end with me in a goldfish tank,” he says, “just tied to a bed. Guess which one I prefer.”

Rex chokes, and Jon shoots Fay a horrified, betrayed look that makes Fay roll her eyes. “Jon,” she says, “get the others. Please.”

Jon looks incredibly relieved to have something else to do, and he nods quickly. Before he can climb to his feet, though, Rex catches his arm, hauls himself up, and says, on the edge of desperate, “Take me with you. _Please_.”

Jon goes dull red, but nods, hooking a gentle arm around Rex's back and pulling him upright. “Feet,” he says, and Rex grimaces, hisses, but lets his legs bleed into feet and staggers into Jon. Quickly, shooting Fay a look, Jon pulls him away, and Fay laughs a little, shaking her head.

“They're sweet,” she says, half an instant before Jango's arm goes tight around her again. He hauls her up, into his lap, and buries his face in her hair with a low, dark sound.

“You just couldn’t stay away,” he says, rough, and Fay strokes her fingers through his hair with a gentle touch.

“Of course not,” she says mildly. “You needed help.”

“And so you got all fancy just for me.” Jango traces the low neckline of the dress, the cutouts along the side, the tracery of gold across her breasts. There's an expression on his face that Fay can't read, but that’s all right. She hums, low, and leans in. Kisses him, light and lingering, and then rises to her feet.

“I thought you would appreciate taking it off me,” she says, and then turns back to the fight. Nico and Knol are doing perfectly well holding off Sidious’s security forces, but—

She hears Jango's breath hitch, and that’s reason enough to end all of this now.

Raising her arms, she spreads her hands, calls her power. Feels the tide of it rise to meet her, the pulse of ocean-dark power from Jango, the way his hands curl around her hips as he rises to press himself against her back, lending her his power.

Fay closes her eyes and drowns their enemies in the tangled blue and gold of sun and sea, and the clearest thing in the whole world is the feel of Jango's smile, tucked against her throat.


End file.
